


i'll be your protector

by sky_blue_hightops



Category: Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure (Cartoon), Tangled (2010)
Genre: Gen, Hurt Eugene Fitzherbert | Flynn Rider, Hurt Varian (Disney), Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Protective Eugene Fitzherbert | Flynn Rider, Team Awesome (Disney: Tangled), Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-09-22
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:00:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26605627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sky_blue_hightops/pseuds/sky_blue_hightops
Summary: It was an accident. It was just an accident.
Relationships: Eugene Fitzherbert | Flynn Rider & Varian, Rapunzel & Varian (Disney)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 147





	i'll be your protector

It was an accident. It was just an accident. Nausea rushes woozy and light in his veins.

He can't draw in a breath. Everything has gone dark around them, and Varian blinks and tries to recall how the lights went out. And then the darkness shifts, groaning, heavy on all sides, and he _remembers_.

The beaker - it wasn't supposed to react like that. He'd only put two drops in, not three, and yet the next second had brought a flash so bright purple spots dance in his vision and an explosion loud enough to make his ears ring. He thinks Eugene is saying - yelling? - something, and he rolls over on the ground to see his friend standing over him.

His heart jumps to his throat. Eugene has the weight of a chunk of the ceiling braced across his shoulders, face red with exertion and from blood streaming down his temple, knuckles white and bruised. It's - it's too heavy, it must be, because that's nearly the _whole ceiling-_

It takes a moment for him to fully process the danger, and when he does, he scrambles to his feet. "Eugene, we have to get out of here, we have to go right now-" The rocks shift again. Eugene shakes his head rapidly, mouth wide in a grimace, but when he sees the terror in Varian's eyes it twists into a desperate smile.

"You've gotta leave, kid. Go get help, I'll be fine." He can hear the _I promise_ hidden in those words, meant to be reassuring, but only damning. There's - there's no way to come back from this one, if it's broken. He won't be able to. He _won't_.

"I can-" His hands fumble in the dark around his knees, searching for anything that could help, but his fingers only scrape ash and grit. Fear makes him lightheaded, blood drips down the back of his neck, and his hands remain empty. "Wait, Eugene, just give me a second, I can fix it!" There's nothing in his pockets. There's nothing important strapped to his belt or abandoned under his table. There's nothing for them here but the stone slowly threatening to crush them both, and sob bursts free from his chest.

The groaning gets louder, and Eugene shuffles his feet and hacks a cough. They've run out of time. The empty space between them begins to close as Eugene has no choice but to slowly slip to his knees, breathing grating and harsh. “I’ll buy you as much time as I can,” he rasps, "just go, _go!_ " His eyes are wild, desperate, focused only on Varian, and Varian _freezes_.

"You...you can't do this." His voice is numb. "You can't! This was - it was just an _accident_ -" They were fine just minutes ago, laughing over another failure, dusting the debris off their goggles, mixing another set of chemicals, pouring beakers and cranking burners and waving off fumes. Everything had been fine! The realization of what will happen refuses to sink in. It can't get past the unflinching belief children hold that bad things cannot just _happen_ for no reason, that things can end between heartbeats and that fractures can split into fissures before their own eyes. Varian scoots backwards, intent on getting help, blinking back tears at the relief that spreads across Eugene's face because of his movements. "I'll be right back, okay? Just - just a minute, two tops, just hold _on-_ "

He kicks his feet out, wiggling back and out from under most of the rubble. Shock threatens to freeze him again, lock his bones and muscles, but he fights through it. _One, two, three_. The seconds tick by too quickly - he moves faster, squeezing out past rock and metal. He's almost there, almost free-

His eyes never leave Eugene's face, not even when he's out into the lamplight and blinking away stars, and so he sees the very moment the weight becomes too much to bear. It happens so fast. It happens before he can even finish _seven_.

He screams and screams until his voice is gone, throat choked with dust.

He cries until he can't anymore, because Eugene is gone, too.

* * *

Rapunzel goes white at the sight of him.

He knows the picture he makes - blood down his temple, grey dust coating his clothes, grief in the tears on his face. He barely feels her hands on his arms, the one that comes up to skim a thumb over his cheek. “What happened,” she asks, and it’s so serious and wary it’s barely a question.

“I- I need help,” he explains. “It’s Eugene, and my lab-” He tries to get more words out, better ones, but nothing can express the blur of what just happened. Her mouth draws thin as she nods and says something over his head to the guards. Her hands never leave him, steadying, and he can’t _breathe_.

“It’s okay, Varian,” she reassures, “they’ll find him. Okay? I need you to take a deep breath for me.” He inhales sharply, the air stuttering in his lungs, but she only nods. He loses time, after this - he recalls being in the hall, but not leaving the room; stone fragments on the ground, but not racing up to his lab’s door. Her hand is warm. He doesn’t remember grabbing it, but her fingers lace tightly with his.

The guards are already throughout the room, carefully removing chunks of rubble. Rapunzel drops his hand, stepping forwards quickly to help, and he’s hit by a sudden dizziness. “I tried...I tried to…” What? What did he do? What could he have possibly done that would've been enough? “Is he okay?”

No one answers, too busy calling directions and wrestling with stone pieces to hear his barely-audible voice over the noise. Maybe no reply is good. Maybe he can live in this world where he doesn’t know for sure either way for a few moments longer. He lands on his knees next to where he pulled himself from just a few minutes ago, the slowest minutes of his life. “Eugene?” He calls, voice a little stronger, and paws at the rubble. His gloves protect his hands like they’ve always done. He tears them off, casts them aside, and pulls with his bare hands. “Eugene!”

His own blood beads on his fingers, but he resolutely doesn’t look. He doesn’t have time to indulge the dragging fatigue, not yet. He’s...so close, he thinks, elbow deep in rock, so close to where he last saw his friend’s face. Smaller stones fall away under his movements. That’s fine. His hands shake too badly to even think about disturbing larger pieces. The longest minutes of his life stretch on with every rock that doesn’t hold skin or cloth under it. He’s resorted to muttering pleas under his breath, inaudible prayers and offers and whatever else he can think of - he’s so caught up in the tears blurring his vision he almost misses it when he sees it.

The next stones reveal fingers, and then a palm, and then Eugene’s hand is warm in his, and he can’t even bear to think of letting go. He calls out for Rapunzel, maybe, or the guards, frantic and so, _so_ happy, and holds tight.

And when they come and help him remove the rest of what was almost the biggest mistake of his life, he can’t do anything but smile. “Hey,” he whispers, pulling gently at the few rocks still piled around Eugene’s arms and shoulders with his free hand. “I came back.”

This time, the relief is bright on his own face.

**Author's Note:**

> the first draft of this ended after the line break so you can thank wren for convincing me to have mercy PFFFT


End file.
